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The dark art of mental toughness

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” [Aristotle]

have you ever wondered why some people seem to accomplish just about everything they set out to do, while others never seem to make it?

Sure, talent, skills and intelligence certainly play their role, but for me, all those attributes all add up to nada if you don’t have big heaps of mental toughness to push you through to the finish line. The upside to this is, whereas you probably have to learn to live with how many smarts you’ve got, you can certainly work on building up your mental toughness muscles.

Mental toughness is the thing that keeps you getting up when you get knocked down. It’s the thing that gets you out of bed when you want to stay under the covers. It’s the thing that makes you stick to the program and smash those deadlines. As Rocky Balboa said, ‘That’s how winning is done.’

So how do you grow your mental toughness muscles? One of the best ways I know is to work on your consistency and develop good habits in all the critical parts of your world. And the best way to do that is to create programs to achieve whatever goals you want to achieve, [business, personal health & fitness, whatever] and stick to them like your life depends on it.

It’s when motivation levels are down that you need your discipline to kick in, and being consistent will test and increase your internal discipline levels. Human beings are by nature creatures of habit, and it’s these good habits that we develop when we are feeling strong and motivated that will get us through when it all seems too hard and we just want to hit the snooze button and roll over.

Tip: Your mental toughness muscles are like any other muscles. Work them hard and they will get bigger and stronger. Don’t work them at all and they will shrivel up and fade away.